


DX00 // fragile_things

by RememberPanchaea



Category: Deus Ex (Video Games), Deus Ex: Human Revolution, Deus Ex: Mankind Divided
Genre: Anger, Angst, Blood, Death, Depression, Domestic Fluff, Drowning, Fear, Gen, Grieving, Loss, Multi, Mutilation, Panchaea, Slice of Life, happiness
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-18
Updated: 2019-08-05
Packaged: 2020-03-07 05:38:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 26
Words: 17,909
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18866836
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RememberPanchaea/pseuds/RememberPanchaea
Summary: Every DX ficlet written and published on my DX Blog: https://remember-panchaea.tumblr.comLargely, these are centered around inner turmoil, growth, recovery, grief, death, coping, love and loss and learning to pick yourself up and keep going.A big thank you to everyone who takes the time to read these works.





	1. // ringtone

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> WARNING: n/a
> 
> FEATURING: Adam Jensen (Canon Character); Francis Pritchard (Canon Character)
> 
> INFO: The first ficlet I ever wrote. ♥ It was just made for the Jensard Shippers out there in general.

\-----------------------------------------------------  
❱❱❱❱❱ PRAGUE, CZECH REPUBLIC  
AUGUST 23, 2029 // 11:28 AM  
\-----------------------------------------------------

A whistle.

A fwip.

Oh... I remember you, he thought. That obnoxious little ringtone. I had you disabled for weeks. You came from the early two thousands just to taunt me? I see.

The blankets rustled, and his legs moved before anything else. Shifting along the cooled fitted sheet, he relished the sensation of how it felt. There was just nothing like it. It was comfort, plain and simple.

The moment would have to end eventually, and so it did. An elbow tucked down into the mattress, and he peeled himself up off the bed. His face pulled up, and he kept his eyes closed, but his mouth opened in that wide sort of yawn you make when you feel like you've slept for five months.

The slide of his hair over a bare shoulder reminded him that he had nothing on. Bleary, sleep-fogged eyes caught a glimpse of the trailing ends of a near-black ponytail, and he reached up to lazily flick it back over. It took effort to actually make his body move, but he managed. The crack of joints in protest was louder than usual today, but he wasn't surprised. If the things they had gotten up to last night were any indication, he knew he'd be wearing these aches for a while.

His feet hit the floor, and the heaviness of his body drifted to weightless bliss for all of a single, disorienting second. A hand rose, rubbing at his neck before he stood, and the sheet tangled around his hips slipped and fell away. A shuffle in his step would see his progress slow, and he plucked up his phone on the way past the desk. His fingers clenched at fabric, tugging it from over the door. A shirt could wait until later, as well as most other things. For now, he meandered into the bathroom and nudged the door almost shut with his heel.

Steam filled the bathroom in no time, and as the air grew warm, he inhaled deeply. It was always the best way to clear your sinuses. The weather lately left them trashed and consistantly swollen. He was not sick, but he certainly felt it. Slipping into the shower, he held the phone up. Waterproof, the battering of spray didn't make a difference. Tired, steel eyes read the messages left for him.

_[ AJ: I'll be home in an hour. ]  
_[ AJ: The case was wrapped up earlier than I thought it would. ]  
_[ AJ: Rest of the day is free. You wanna loaf around? ]

He smiled to himself and nodded to no one. Sliding the keyboard out, he responded to him.

_[ Frank: That sounds nice actually. ]  
_[ Frank: Maybe we can order delivery and catch up on one of your shows? ]

The keyboard was shut again, and he rested the phone on the tray under the showerhead. He turned for the time being, and let the spray hit his back directly, red lines down his spine and across his ribs forming stories of the evening prior written across his skin. They felt good, like a lingering reminder of how he wanted him more than anything else. He'd been hesitant to indulge Francis, to dig in and rake his fingers down his back. He had to assure Adam that he wouldn't hurt him, or at least, not in a way he didn't like.

Any sort of real roughness was difficult for him. After losing so much, but gaining Francis, he was always careful. He'd handled him like a porcelain doll for a while, until he finally leveled with him.

"You aren't going to hurt me unless you mean to, Adam," Francis had told him. "And you've never been the sort of person to want to inflict harm. Sure, you might have some anger issues, but you're not like that. Not toward people you care about."

Sometimes, Adam still slipped into that monster mindset, where he couldn't view himself as human. He'd always helped him through them. It was understandable, and even expected, that they would have the occasional period in which he slipped. Adam had spent so, so long in such a constant state of stress and anxiety that these problems were the least to be encountered. Francis could count the number of times he'd gotten out of bed and loaded his handgun, certain he had heard something, on one hand. That's the way he preferred it to stay. Those nights were scary, and being the only person to calm him down was doubly so.

Eventually, Francis stepped out of the shower, toweling off and turning the fan on. He leaned forward, hair hanging in front of it, and brushed it dry. He was interrupted by the sound of another little whistle and fwip and straightened back up. Moving over, he snatched it off the shelf and dried it, looking down at the screen after.

_[ AJ: Can we get something from the Mongolian BBQ this time? ]  
_[ AJ: Please? ]

Francis laughed softly at his insistence. He'd consistantly tried to get Adam to order from new places, and try different foods, but it always came back to Mongolian Grill. He could practically feel the puppy eyes from here.

_[ Frank: Oh fine. ]  
_[ Frank: Gyros next time, though!  
_[ AJ: 😄 ]  
_[ AJ: I knew I could count on you to pull through in my hour of need. ]  
_[ Frank: Oh please. Not having that platter isn't going to kill you. ]  
_[ AJ: I'm already withering. ]  
_[ Frank: I have proof to the contrary. ]  
_[ AJ: 😧 ]  
_[ AJ: You wouldn't dare. ]  
_[ Frank: You're right. I would never give these ab selfies to anyone. ]  
_[ Frank: I love them too much to part with them. ]  
_[ AJ: Your greed saved the world. ]  
_[ Frank: From what? ]  
_[ AJ: Dying of thirst. ]

While he typed a single 'LOL' in all capitals, his shoulders actually shook and he laughed abruptly. Moving to the door, he fetched his pants off the hanger and slipped them and the boxers on. He couldn't be bothered to zip them, and walked from the bathroom to the kitchen immediately instead. Coffee would be waiting for Adam when he got home, like always.

It felt good to have routine back in his life again.


	2. // random_access_memory_error

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> WARNING: The following personal ficlet contains implications of suicide. It is NOT detailed, but it is nonetheless one of the themes of this piece. 
> 
> FEATURING: Adam Jensen (Canon Character); Nadir Ibn Al-Dhahabi (OC)
> 
> INFO: This was my first drabble I wrote for my friend's and mine's ship of his Adam and my Belltower CEO OC, Nadir. It's written from Adam's perspective about Nadir.

\-----------------------------------------------------  
❱❱❱❱❱ PRAGUE, CZECH REPUBLIC  
JANUARY 8, 2032 // 4:22 AM  
\-----------------------------------------------------

"Something told me you'd appreciate it," he began. The low gravel in his voice pitched up into a chuckle. It sat on the back of his tongue, thick and pooling... his favorite whiskey. "I searched every store in the city, and finally had to order it."

Light, fingers on his shoulder. Joy in his eyes, synthetic parts joined with glittering gold. Labeled, branded... < n o t m i n e >. The warmth in his heart, the smile on his face. It felt... good. This was what good felt like. He forgot...

Arabian heat, the stilted words of Syria, closer than he wanted, too far to touch. That was for the best. You don't need to go home. < i t i s w o r t h l e s s >

"You are sweet... too sweet to me, you know this?" Turning, he faced him. The light in green eyes. It had been gone for so long. It was back now. He loved it. Glittering off false limbal rings and dazzling in the morning sun.

< m i n e >

"Do you... remember?" < m e m o r y >

...

"... No."

< h o w c o u l d y o u >

"It's okay." < n o >

Next time. Next time. < n e x t t i m e >

?

...

Inky black, lashes open, and he looks to the sky. It's drifting now, falling heavier. Something clings. Snow. He remembers. He recalls. He ... feels. < b u r n i t >

He doesn't want to. A flash of memory < o b s c u r e > in his mind.

Hands dragging along his beard, over his cheeks. A forehead touches his.

A smile. A smile... his smile... < a c c e s s >

Lips moving, but he can't hear the sound. He sees his eyes. They match his, golden. Fool's gold. You were always a fool.

"I love you anyways."

Do you? < o f c o u r s e >

He feels it. Fingers through his hair, the touch of lukewarm metal. Fingers that are not his. They do not hurt. Familiar. His but not his. < c o m f o r t >

Where are we? < e r r o r > We got here somehow. Maybe we walked. He walked. He... he... I... we did this. I did this.

He can taste his lips. You aren't here. You haven't been here all night. < a b a n d o n >

No. He walked out, in the dead of night.

"This isn't going to last."

"What do you mean? Why would it not?" < f a n t a s y >

"I'm not meant to survive this."

< d e n i a l >

"I never liked following the rules of others."

No. You broke them. You broke them to be with me... to be with me...

He... mine. < m i n e >

...

< y o u r s >

Why am I out here? It's cold.

I don't like the cold. < r e s o l v e >

I don't like how it feels when you aren't pressed against me.

You belong in my arms.

< p u l s e >

"I find it ironic, you know?"

"What's that?" < q u e r y >

"All of these years, I have surrounded myself in gold... and yet, you were all I needed."

< r a c i n g >

"We were scared."

< h e a t >

"Please do not fear me..."

I can feel you... Your breath is mine, your heartbeat is the same. Tangled against me under sheets torn by augmented limbs catching the fabric.

Let me... feel you against me. < l o n g i n g >

"Promise me you will be home soon?"

< l i a r > You lied to him.

"I do not wish to miss you for long, Adam."

You came out here for a different reason, staring into the icy water. It would have been so easy to let your head slip under, and never come back up, swallowed in your fear, your guilt your self-loathing, your shouldering the entire blame of a world who hates you despite your best attempts to-

"Adam?"

< e x h a l e >

"I love you. See you soon."

...

I'll see you soon.

< t r y a g a i n >

You went home again.

Home.

What a silly concept.


	3. // bleeding_temples_ichor_fountains

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> WARNING: The following personal ficlet contains implications of violence. It is NOT graphic, but it is nonetheless one of the themes of this piece. 
> 
> FEATURING: Adam Jensen (Canon Character); Nadir Ibn Al-Dhahabi (OC)
> 
> INFO: This is written from Nadir's perspective, about my friend's Adam they play.

\-----------------------------------------------------  
❱❱❱❱❱ ??A?UE, C???H ?E??B??C  
???U??Y 8, ??32 // ?:?2 ?M  
\-----------------------------------------------------

You were sitting at the bistro, remember? Watching the evening sun as it set down into the horizon. Its orange light faded and its arrogance bled out on the city. How haughty, you thought to yourself.

Not of the sun, no.

Of you.

To think so highly that you may consider yourself an equal to God?

No, never equals. You lost your equality long ago. You are...

b  
e  
n  
e  
a  
t  
h me . . .

You were always so < p r o u d > of your filthy little kingdom.

Weren't you?

I wasn't.

An empire, carved of the sun's flesh set into volcanic rock. Boiling molten gold, it bled across your hands. It burned you and you didn't care.

You, you were GOD.

You were meant to wear the < c r o w n > yes you WERE...

...Yes... you were.

Once upon a time, when things still made sense.

But the < c r o w n > was heavy, and the burden was immense. You are no TITAN, and you will fall.

You will < s u f f e r > in him.

...

You were meant to die.

I am glad you didn't? < w h y >

You can't breathe. No, no that's my breath. It's mine... mine, give it back, I cannot breathe.

My lungs burn, the heat of the sun, the molten ichor that's drowning me. I do not desire < d i v i n i t y > I just want the pain to stop... to stop. Please...

"P-please... e...everything hurts..."

You remember those words. You looked up into his patent eyes and found only your reflection.

Please... let me see your eyes.

Let me see the humanity in you.

You are still < h u m a n > after all.

... I can't.

Choking, the ashes stir. Wings, you are no angel. I don't need an angel. I need you. Nobody needs you...

...except for me.

You came back for me. "How could you?" You blamed yourself, but we both knew what I was asking.

"How could you let me live?"

That's what my voice couldn't say. You saw it in my eyes, and finally...

...you let me see yours.

... I found myself in another man.

I don't feel so broken anymore. I am not choking on ash and the blood of temple gods. I can breathe, and I breathe you in.

Bolts in his chest, pressed to yours, half-synthetic. So little is real.

Who needs < r e a l i t y > ?

I only need you. I will mend your wings. I will mend your heart. I will mend your mind.

... So long as you tell me, just once...

"I love you."

There it is. The pillars aren't bleeding. Crumbling to ruin, it stopped and reversed. I can still feel your hand around my throat. It lives there.

Touch me, know me. It's been... so long. < t o o l o n g > since I felt you.

We are going to Paris this summer. You promised.

Don't change your mind.

It's all for that simple < i l o v e y o u > in the end...

... isn't it?


	4. // his_king

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> WARNING: N/A (Unless you count SAD SHIT but also HAPPY SHIT)
> 
> FEATURING: Adam Jensen (Canon Character); Nadir Ibn Al-Dhahabi (OC)
> 
> INFO: Sometimes you just want to write mushy happy shit, okay? Don’t kink-shame me. I love couples being happy and good and having a nice home life and DOWN TIME WHERE THEY CUDDLE ON THE COUCH. (/sobbing) This was also written for my friend.

The sun came up.

It rose on a morning where the clouds refused to part. Rain on the window panes. He remembered that they never moved. Staying... grounded here like they always had been. Old trees with their bodies twisted into one, and old roots that burrowed into caverns deeper than the recesses of his memories.

Memories... of blackened bark and chipping dreams falling away in flakes that are burnt and brittle. We picked at it, pulling pieces off because we wanted to see what was yet to come.

I don't want to wait.

"Help me." You said that once. You didn't use your lips. You said it with your eyes. He died in the ocean, and you died in the slums.

Revenants. You were both memories of each other, of an era that was gone. Tarnished metal pretending to be gold. That's you. That's him.

You were a ghost and he was a golem. You had no form and he had no soul... That doesn't sound right, but that's what they said.  
And you... you pressed yourself against him, and you sank into him. You let him drink you in. You gave yourself to him.

You were his... It felt right. It feels right.

Old stone heaped upon embroidered cushions, tight threads holding seams on the couch closed better than either of your fingers laced together. Palm to palm, Aztec gold tucked between oil black... Exhanging breaths, heartbeats, words, moments and ...

And you... you with your patent eyes, you hid them behind mirrors that would never reflect your mind. You pulled them back. You opened the door.

He was yours... It felt right. It feels right.

Devoted to you for reasons you couldn't fathom, because he didn't need to tell you. The birds that roost in the eaves of your hallowed halls. Your castle lay empty and overgrown but you refused to budge. He stayed by the throne you decorated with your wings, your heart, your wounds, your blood and ...

"I love you."

How could he tell you so freely? It took you months to know it was okay. It was okay. It is okay. Patience. He's patient with you. He knows that wounds won't heal because you tell them to. He knows you won't stop tasting the salt water because you drown it in one part coffee, one of whiskey and seven parts regret and three parts fear and and and ...

You felt lips on your cheek.  
You opened your eyes, for once in your life. You saw the things you needed to, and not what you wanted.

You watched your kingdom laid to waste, and he was the one who did it all.

You hated him... you thought you did.

There is too much hate in the world. You did not want more. You laid down your sword, and he fell into your arms.

O' Merciful King...

O' Fitful Prince...

He couldn't tell you he loved you because he didn't know, but it was written here all along, if you'd only stop to look and see and use your eyes to see what you need and not what you want. Just once.

Just once...  
You were lost and you were scared. You stood in the ruins of hope, as the rain came down. Surrounded by faces he didn't recognize, but he recognized yours. He recognized you. He saw you past the anger, the hurt and the fear.

And you bent...

And you broke...

And you were already broken when he found you begging for death.

O' Merciful King...

O' Lover's Crown...

You were no good for him. You were tarnished and broken, discarded and brittle. Your paint was flaking and your eyes were blind. Your heartbeat was slow and your pains were in your soul not just your bones anymore. You were no good for him. Worthless, discarded, you outlived your use.

And you are lying on the couch, with his arms around you, and his skin against yours, and you share your blood and you share your breath and you share his mercy, his grace, his virtue, his...

He...

Him...

He is you.

And his arms are around you, and his lips are against your throat, and his frail body shapes itself to yours, your castle, your fortress, his keep, his king...

...You are his king.

The rain hasn't stopped, and you don't want it to. You were never sleeping. He's dreaming.

Tucked against you, nothing between your bodies. And he's fragile and he's vulnerable and he trusts you like he trusted you to kill him.

But you didn't.

This is not betrayal. This is your decree.

The apartment is chilly, and your skin crawls. It reminds you of things you want to forget. They don't belong here. Fled from you, let them run. The ice built in your veins, and the wind howls in your ears, and the glacial shelf moans under your feet, and you can feel you catching your death out here-...

He moves. Tighter against you. Inhaling the whiskey and the nicotine you're wreathed in like dragon's fire. You clutch inky fingers into the scars in his thigh, and you pull him against you. Your hand slides across his back, and you lock your arm behind him. Tangled around you, the heat of him against your leg, between yours, his arm behind your neck, his fingers in your hair. You pull the sheet across you both, no longer a funeral drape. You weren't dead, you only thought you were.

He loves you and you can't tell why.

But his devotion is honest and it is whole.

And you feel like you can breathe.

And you breathe him in.

Your nose in his hair, at his temple, on his cheek. Your lips trail his jaw, and they catch on the circuits. You can feel him tighten because he won't ever let you go. He's greedy and you don't mind because you feel like a person and not a possession for the first time in your life.

You found your voice. You found your courage.

"I love you."

And you found his smile, in his peaceful sleep. So far away, detached and distant...

And on the mountain's castle, in the ruins you left behind, he heard you find your courage and he loves you and he knew you felt the same.

You just needed to love yourself first before you could remember the words.


	5. // nobody_needs_that

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> WARNING: The following personal ficlet contains death. It is NOT graphic, but it is nonetheless one of the themes of this piece.
> 
> FEATURING: Adam Jensen (Canon Character); Nadir Ibn Al-Dhahabi (OC)
> 
> INFO: Nadir as a character is built around the theme of "Mortality". As such, it’s going to be common for ficlets involving him to be about living in the moment, life coming to an abrupt end, and the trials of humanity we all must endure. This was written to see if I could portray a realistic way in which Nadir would be most likely to die. He’s frail, and he knows his time on this planet will be short. This was written for my friend who plays Adam.

And he could feel it, long before they got into bed. Something was strange, and something was off. He never felt this way before. A wrongness, but he pushed it aside, to the back of his mind. Why, after all, would he worry?

Why worry? Just live.

He climbed into his arms, and he tucked against his chest. Where anchors set into the flesh made everything firmer than it should have been. Arms around him... gleaming oil slick fields, Alaska he once knew. There's no gold in the tundra, but it's here and it's there... it's all over, and yet the plated sections were never the parts he cared about. It was never about the metal, or the machinery, or the gears that turned a tired soul and fired the furnace in his heart.

It was the way he could watch eyes full of weary fatigue, and lift his hands to press them to his jaw, his cheeks, his chin against his as lips met. The heat of his breath, his body curving to the shape of a colossus he bedded every night for the last three years. Bedded and held as he held him, shielded in the knowledge he would be here when he woke. He was always here. His eyes opened, and he saw the same picture every morning. Arms around him, twined together, strong nose tucked into his hair, near the blinking lights in his skull, lips to his scalp.

And he was closer than ever in his life. Warmth. The heat of just them. He told him not to mourn the humanity he lost. Limbs and organs and flesh and bone. "That's not your humanity. Your humanity is in your name, your mind, your flaws and your cracks and your fissures that rise steam from a molten core... your core... our core. You are my other half... The parts of me that are missing you had all along. And I cannot bear to be without you. I cannot bear to rise from this bed every morning and know we will not touch one another through the whole of the day."

He told him that.

"Let's sleep in." And they did. They always did, when they could. And they would rise, and they would go about their day but like two comets shrieking through space passing one another, they were always destined to collide once more. Coming together... tangled in one another, this was where they belonged.

And he could not bear to not feel him against him... his Icarus... his... always his.

He could not bear to rise from bed, and be without him... he could not bear to not feel his skin against his own.

And that night he felt so very strange...

Strange, how we are so stubborn...

So stubborn he died in your arms that night.

You woke to find him unmoving, unbreathing, un... anything.

He was gone...

But he was right, you know... He could not bear to not feel you against him... His heart was too weak to humor the thought.

You held him for hours, and the tears wouldn't come. You held him because you knew it would be the last time, and you did not want to stop, even if his heart already did while you both slept happily through the night.

Happiness...

Nobody needs that...


	6. // it_will_be_okay

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> WARNING: The following personal ficlet contains violence and death. It does not go into graphic detail, but it is nonetheless one of the themes of this piece.
> 
> FEATURING: Felicia Valentin (OC); Vinn Rydell (OC)
> 
> INFO: This is a piece I wrote for my friend, and her character here is the female mentioned, who’s named Felicia Valentin. My own is the man, Vinn Rydell. Felicia is not visibly augmented, but Vinn is heavily so. She’s a short, pretty French lady who wears a plague doctor mask and is an unlicensed augmentations specialist. He’s a tall, lanky Swede that mostly does freelance work and is otherwise homeless. They have been friends since childhood. Her player read some of my others and requested I “hurt her” by writing her one as well. She claims I did it too well, so now y’all can read this horrible garbage too. I attempt to convey a sense of anxiety when I use these long run-on sentences, like mimicking racing thoughts almost, and I can only hope it works.

Do you remember?

Do you remember when we fought? You do. You remember the yelling, the escalation of voices, the anger in his eyes, in her eyes, in your eyes, in ours... our eyes.

Our... we... we were two, once upon a time.

The coldness, the cruelty, the baring of teeth like angry wolves.

And this would pass. That's what we said. It would pass and it would be made right again. We would come back around. You would roll into town and you would ring him up. He'd greet you with stilted English he still couldn't speak well. You loved it. His smile, his energy.

Electric.

You were electric. You were more than the circuits in your body and the mechanical devices driving your limbs. You were more than the hurt, and she loved you for you. She loved your mind and your spirit and your heart and your... your you.

She loved you for you.

He loved your silence.

The calm before his storm. The quiet winds before the gale hit. You were the wind under his wings, teaching him to soar, to be more than what he confessed he was in the darkness of your still bedroom. This room isn't yours. It never was. You have no home and yet he lives with you.

He crashed in your heart more than he ever crashed on your couch. You didn't want it any other way. Why have a couch if he wasn't on it?

Useless furniture.

It's empty now, but you can still see his ghost on it some days.

You see the glow of metallic red haloed by light that shone like morning. It was just the lamp, when he told you about his adventures. You loved his stories but you loved him more and he always came back to you. You were his world. You were the wind under his wings, the reason he fought, the reason he tried.

What is a dragon without a queen to circle?

He circled you. He spun about you every day and he fell into you.

And you caught him.

But not this time.

You found him when the dust settled. Amidst the store fronts on fire and the people screaming for help, to save them and their loved ones. You found him. You rushed to his side and you took of your mask in public for the first time. You cupped his face, and you shouted at him.

"Stay with me!"

You yelled. You yelled like you were mad at him and not the circumstance but only because you wanted him to hear you.

He heard you.

You looked up at her, eyes of stained glass showing a different story in her chapel than ever before. It's different this time. You can see the people inside, and you can see them in the pews. You can see their heads bowed and you can see the casket before them.

And somehow you know it's your body in the casket.

But you smiled. You smiled despite the blood on your teeth, one missing at the side, and you smiled despite the fact you were almost blind. And your head is spinning, and your chest is cold, and you can't feel much anymore.

You feel pain.

You've never felt this much pain before.

And you're scared and she's scared and the world is scared and the bombs are made of dreams thrown back at a government who crushed theirs.

And she's crying, "Don't leave me," and you tell her you won't but you're a liar and you always have been one.

He's bleeding out. You press your hands to the wounds and you put as much pressure on the spot as you can, and your body is small and you feel if maybe you were bigger you could stop the bleeding and you could stop the pain and you could stop him from dying and you could you could you could...

...if only it had been different.

And you're crying but he's smiling and he's telling you you're too beautiful to cry. He's telling you it'll be okay and you know he's lying. He's lying through his bloodied teeth and his lips are hurting you more than anyone ever has.

Your mind is fractured and you wish you could be numb like all of those other times.

"Even if it's a lie, tell me it will be okay," you demand. Your voice is shaking and your throat is tight and you're choking on the smoke in the air but you can't find the will to care about anything but this.

"It will be okay."

He's lying to you.

You can taste the lie, you can smell the deception, you can hear the quaver in his voice and you know that he hasn't even convinced himself.

But you want to believe him.

And your vision is fading. She's the last thing you see. Red, throbbing agony is creeping in at the corners of your sight. You can't hear her voice anymore. You can only hear your heartbeat.

And you can hear it slowing.

You can tell she knows this is the end, and you try to laugh but there's no sound. Shadows overtake you, but it's just her. She's pulled you into her arms, against her chest. And you're staring up at her.

He's staring up at you with eyes that are glassier than you remembered, and there's something in his eyes that had never been there before.

His profund new religion of "this is the end" is written in holy scripture in eyes that stare up at you like he's found God in your face.

And the smile is fleeing.

And the light is bleeding out.

And he's not moving anymore.

And you can't feel his breath on your face.

And he's gone and he's gone and he never existed.

And you can't feel anything anymore.

Isn't this the numb you asked for?


	7. // risen_from_ruin

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> WARNING: N/A
> 
> FEATURING: Adam Jensen (Canon Character); Nadir Ibn Al-Dhahabi (OC)
> 
> INFO: I’d been inspired by The Romanovs - King when a friend linked it to me. It has such a particular feel and force to it that I had to write. Nadir - my Belltower CEO OC - wound up in Golem City following Tarvos being created out of the remnants of Belltower. It was not immediate, but rather happened a couple months following the change. He was removed from the role forcibly. During his first visit, Adam encountered Nadir in Golem and stood as an unmoving mountain as Nadir laid into him with his fists. With barely functioning augmentations, however, he was unable to fight him like he did the first time, and simply collapsed. He was forced to actually speak with the one man he hated above all else truthfully for the first time. This is sort of my poetic hot take on that and the aftermath when he got together with Adam.

Gone.

He was gone, and he was gone.

And he never truly was.

There's something that stirs in the pit of your stomach, in the furnace of your heart. These flames ignited, they caught fire, they spread and they burned...

...and they < b u r n e d >

You stood in your cathedral, watching through stained glass memories as the world crumbled around you, fell into fissures in the earth. Opened up, snarling for tribute, a rumble that shook the planet to its pitiful core.

You stood witness to the end of times, carried on the back of broken wings that would never know true flight again. Watching the spiraling descent that plunged into hungry flames, all consuming and vicious.

You stood by as ruinous victory of fatally flawed enemies clawed its way across your kingdom eternal, and in the heat of the scorching sun, you saw the barren wasteland that painted a bleak picture of the future.

And you were moved.

You felt something stir in your cold, steel heart.

You felt a welling of fearful responsibility.

You felt lives coming apart and bleeding red across your palms.

Slipping through your fingers.

Dripping to the ground.

Spreading in a creeping wave of corrupted vitriol, the same you spouted at him when you found him...

... when he found you < d e a d >

You were breathing. Fire in your eyes, you refused to give up your crown < i t s m i n e >

"Why couldn't you just die?"

Venom. This isn't your voice.

"You should have just given up!"

Wrath. This isn't your heart.

"Things would have been fine!"

Pride. This isn't your soul.

... "I-... I wish..."

Your heart is beating. It's beating. It's beating. It won't stop...

"... I wish you had succeeded."

You're bleeding. Ichor pours from your veins you've split open to fill the fountains of his kingdom. A glimmering tribute, paid to him. Your kingdom is burning. Your people are gone. Your towers have fallen. This is your crown.

This is your crown.

And somewhere in the dark sky, embers drift on unfelt winds. Your spirit feels weary, feels heavy, feels ... it feels. Finally, it feels.

And fists have stopped beating against the titan before you. And breaths have slowed to fearful sobs. And shoulders have slumped in great defeat.

Fingers at your temples, you wish they would crush inward. He won't make it so easy.

You can't see his face anymore. He's turned into a wash of colour swirled together. There's heat on your face, down your cheeks, clinging to your jaw. An obsidian crown on a jet black throne. Twisted cold metal, made of limbs made of dreams made of < y o u >

"Please, tell me this isn't the end."

You could barely hear his answer, but his lips moved at all. That mattered. He was not silent. And he, this merciful king, found his strength in your fall.

...

Winter came at last. < s o c o l d >

He never liked winter anymore.

That was before you were in his bed. Tangled together in the heat of him, the heat of you, the heat of this moment, stretching toward forever.

You want this to be forever.

Your fingers slide across his jaw, up his cheeks, to cradle his crown in your hands.

And for the first time, your hands do not wish to take it from him.

Eyes watch his. Mirror.

Mirror... he is you, and you are him.

How cruel fate must be, to forbid two halves the release of union. For so long, you desired nothing save the fires that engulfed you and poured the flesh from your bones. Now you only desired him. < h e i s m i n e >

... Mine.

It felt right.

In the kingdom of his eyes, you found yourself lost. Rivers ran beneath black soil, and still they were red as the day he came to be. The heart of his throne still radiated warmth, it beat, it beat, it beat ... for you, for him... for... us.

Cold mornings, as frost gathered on the window sill, and snow refused to fall. Grey skies gathered heavy clouds, laden with promise of a better world.

Wind, bitter and lonely, sought to caress you like he does.

It is jealous.

His kingdom in your eyes, you stand watch on the ramparts of a castle you've carved out of ruin. Every stone, a promise. Every banner, a dream.

Your empire never fell.  
Your crown never broke.  
Your throne never burned.

In the morning light, the sky wept.

It mourned.

Long live the king.

The king is dead.

"The king is mine."

And his name never tasted so good on your tongue before.


	8. // was_it_worth_it

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> WARNING: The following personal ficlet contains MAJOR CHARACTER DEATH. It is NOT graphic, but it is nonetheless one of the themes of this piece. 
> 
> FEATURING: Adam Jensen (Canon Character)
> 
> INFO: So apparently I’ve decided that V-Day is the perfect time to try and get past one of the themes in writing that relentlessly will probably always upset me! ADAM FCUKING DYING. I started to think about what DXMD would have been like if Adam had just... died. Like legit, no restart, no savescumming. What if he actually fucking died during the game? I’m not sorry, nor will I ever be, for hearts that might get broken. It’s what I’m best at.

It is 3:21 AM.

You remember the way Detroit looked on lonely winter nights.

The way the lights glimmered off her fresh coat of snow left you staring like you'd never seen with your eyes before. Something in you stirred, as though you found love for the first time.

You watched her as she breathed and her pulse hammered against her throat, of a thousand busy lives rushing through her veins.

She was beautiful and she was familiar.

You watched her through eyes that were yours. Your eyes, your sight, your memories they record.

Your eyes...

Your eyes...

They are not there.

It is 3:22 AM.

You remember how you lost them, along with so much of yourself.

The humanity you left behind on the floor of the lab went into the bio bins and you never saw it again. That's what you told yourself, Adam. You told yourself that you weren't a person anymore.

You weren't alive and you weren't really feeling any of this.

You didn't have emotions, a robot, a metal man on the inside. And you felt so hollow, and so weak, without your flesh that you had known for all of your life.

But you were alive.

That counted for something... right?

It is 3:23 AM.

You remember how the world changed after everything.

The knowledge you possessed is not what you wanted. You could have gone your whole life happily oblivious to the hellish truths of a world plated in glittering gold. And yet you knew that underneath that luminous treasure it dared to call skin lay something festering.

It was cold and it was cruel and it was sick like an animal.

The world is on its last legs. A twisted and broken creature gasping for breath as humanity struggles to be more than its birthright.

You were his wings.

It is 3:24 AM.

You remember how Prague burned, and overnight it fell.

Fire and chaos carved a swath across the land, burning hotter than the frigid bite of the ice under your feet. You felt it give way, and in that moment you told yourself that you did everything you could.

You told yourself that it wasn't your fault.

You told yourself that it was all your fault.

The crushing cave of ice around you, saltwater in your eyes and ears, it rushed down your throat as your body was claimed by the sea, and you felt her arms embrace you.

Because you escaped her once before.

It is 3:25 AM.

You remember the panic as the world turned against its most vulnerable.

Standing on the precipice of a new world order, you stared into the eyes of the giants who would see you fall, and you alone stood as tribute to a future where we are free.

We... are.. free...

Unyielding, unbowing, you refused to kneel when they pointed and spat their demands for you to fall. You were done following orders, listening, baying like a hound at the end of his chain.

And you lashed out.

You met their hatred and you met their terror and you met their cold, cruel ice with the fire that still lingered on your back from wings that the sun burned away.

You rushed headlong into a war that you were the only soldier fighting who hadn't given up and gone black on the inside. And you glittered in a world gone grey, made of iron and twisted knives in wounds made by a fate so cruel you could not bear to see it suffer any longer.

...

It is 3:26 AM.

You remember the hail of gunfire.

You remember the way the metal jackets tore through yours.

You remember the smell of your own hope, red on your hands.

You remember the taste of home on your tongue that could no longer speak.

You remember the way you felt cold...

... colder than Panchaea ever felt.

There is an ice sheet wrapped around your steel heart. It is beating, and it is fighting, like you always fought.

There is light in your eyes, but it is fading. You can't see anything anymore, and everything feels hazy and dark.

There is a weakness in you that you haven't felt since that night... that night... every night...

... every night you felt weak.

Alone, afraid, of an uncertain future, you worried yourself to the bone over the fate of a human race who cared so little about you in the end.

What were you to them?

... Ah.

... a < m a c h i n e >

But... machines don't bleed, isn't that right?

... That can't be right.

You don't feel pain anymore, as your hip strikes the floor.

You don't feel warmth anymore, as your hand catches your fall.

You don't feel fear anymore, as your shoulder kisses the stone.

You don't feel worry anymore, as your head lays down.

You don't feel alone anymore, as your eyes watch her gather over you.

< h e r > ... you remember her.

She held you in her arms so many times. She cradled you and sang to you in her soft, sweet voice. She hushed your fears as the light fled and darkness crept in.

... You can never seem to recall her face.

But you know her by name.

It is 3:27 AM.

You remember her name.

You are staring up into her face that you forgot.

How could you forget < m e > ?

Something stirred in your steel heart, in your tired soul, and amidst it all, you found the strength to feel your voice again. And you looked upon her eyes that felt more kind than any who have regarded you before, and you felt hands on your face that held you like no lover has ever known your skin, and you felt something stir in your steel heart in your tired soul in your throat you found your voice to speak...

"I... am sorry."

... It was never your fault, and yet... you would always find ways to blame yourself.

For not trying hard enough.  
For not screaming loud enough.  
For not fighting back enough.  
For not being fast enough.  
For...

... For being human.

... Ah.

That's it, isn't it?

You were still human after all...

And she loved you so, that she could not bear to be apart from you any longer.

...

It is ... an irrelevant hour.

And you remember her name is the end and it is written in her eyes.

And her face is the barrel.

And her mouth is deliverance.

And you remember...

You... remember...

The sound of a gun firing that night.


	9. // quiet

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> WARNING: n/a
> 
> FEATURING: Adam Jensen (Canon Character); Nadir Ibn Al-Dhahabi (OC)
> 
> INFO: Hey look, more domestic couple cute shit drabble. This is self-indulgent bullshit with Nadir and the Adam piloted by my friend. Adam wanted to watch a movie, and in this household, we give Adam what Adam wants because he’s a good boy who deserves nice, soft, peaceful cuddles on the couch. I love Adam a lot and just want him to be happy.

Tucked against the couch, Nadir had his knees pulled up, heels dug into the cushions. A pillow in his arms, wrapped tightly about it, he watched the television through tired eyes. It was bleeding through commercial after commercial, the soft light casting a glow across the dark living room. 11:20 PM, last time he checked the clock. His retinal display was off. The lights he'd turned down when Adam got home from work because he'd mentioned a headache. As far as he knew, the man was still in bed, but the slow, fatigued steps that thumped down the hall told him otherwise.

Nadir looked up at the man wearing nothing but house pants, and as he leaned down to press a kiss to him, he rose to meet it. The quiet sound of lips leaving lips preceeded a voice that asked, "Did the nap help, Qalbi?"

A soft murmur answered, "Yeah." He stayed bent forward as Nadir's fingers trailed through his hair. They scruffed gently down his cheek, until they cupped his jaw for a few moment's longer. "Watch a movie with me?"

The Syrian's lips pulled into a soft smile. "Of course." He moved the pillow aside and let it fall to the floor, straightening his legs out as Adam laid down with him. He tucked back against the back end of the couch, and Nadir kept a leg behind him. It had seemed weird to see the man in jeans and normal coats and tees around the house for a while, but Adam eventually got used to it. Eventually, Nadir even let himself be barefoot or wear normal boots, like tonight. Half-laced tactical boots he got second-hand from a surpluss store. As Adam settled, he tucked a leg around the back of Adam's thigh. His other arm stayed behind him, tucked up around his neck, golden fingers gentle on his cheek.

Nadir dropped his hand to pluck up the remote off the floor, and he eyed it and the television for a moment before passing it to him. "You pick, Qalbi," he issued tenderly, before his lips pressed to the chip's faded logo on his forehead. Adam accepted the remote, lifting his head off of Nadir's shoulder and chest to flick to the movies menu, and murmured tiredly to himself. "...Dinosaurs?" Nadir lifted his brows. "Jurassic Park..?" Adam clarified, before the man against him smiled. "Sure." He put it on, and put the remote on Nadir's chest, and the Syrian reached up to put it on the floor after adjusting the volume.

Adam sank down against him, cheek against Nadir's shoulder. Largely quiet, he tipped his head down occasionally to place a kiss at the corner of Nadir's mouth, and after the third, Nadir turned his head up to catch Adam's lower lip between his teeth gently. His natural hand lifted, using it to gently turn Adam into the kiss, mouth to his exploring the spot briefly, and fingers ruffled through his beard. Only a handful of seconds later, he pulled off and used a gentle pressure from his hand to ease Adam's cheek down onto his shoulder. He kept his golden fingers in his hair, head turned to watch the movie as it played. His left hand was sought out by Adam in short order, and he threaded his fingers together with oil black carbon fibre. Gently holding it, Nadir quietly crooned to him, fingers stroking through his hair, over his temple and down the back of his head.

It wasn't long before Adam began to doze, his head heavy on Nadir's shoulder. Only once he was certain that he was asleep did Nadir reach to pick the remote up and turn the TV's volume down to a low murmur of sound. Putting the remote back, he turned his upper body, wrapping his arm around Adam and his leg over his thigh, holding onto him and letting his nose rest against Nadir's prosthetic throat. He kept his lips in his hairline, breathing steadily, until he felt Adam lift an arm and wrap it around Nadir's waist. His brows lifted, a little surprised, before Adam's sleepy mumbles of, "Sleep here tonight," met his ears.

The smile Nadir wore was a quietly joyful one, and he murmured, "Of course, Adam."

He did just that, and it was the soundest and stillest that Adam had slept in a week, refusing to budge even as the sun filtered through their blinds the next morning.


	10. // centigrade

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> WARNING: n/a
> 
> FEATURING: Adam Jensen (Canon Character)
> 
> INFO: Based on a prompt with the theme of "Overheating".

Sarif never told him certain things about the augmentations he received.

Sure, they could endure the cold biting at him as the world caved in around him. His skin would numb and lose feeling as the hellscape’s lovely weather sank its claws in through his coat long before he’d ever feel strain on the augmentations. He couldn’t feel his face at some point, despite only having been outside for a handful of minutes.

Minutes that in retrospect felt like grains of sand slipping through his fingers.

Minutes he wished so desperately he could have back.

                     …Dubai was different.

The glare of the sun was a vicious, unrelenting diety staring painful hate down, radiating past clouds he couldn’t even see if he squinted. For the first time, the discomfort in his own skin he felt wasn’t due to it not feeling like his own. It was the need to shed it from his bones and unwrap the furnace that was burning hot, too hot, on the inside.

His coat wasn’t an option. He’d kept it wrapped about himself in hopes that it’d fend off direct sunlight, maybe slow the onset of overheating. What a notion…

Not even thirty minutes into stepping off the chopper, he was already stripping it off and laying it over his arm. The armor was too much. He needed it, he knew that much. He had a job to do.

_… What the hell am I supposed to be doing?_

Oh…

                                                  …Information…

                    _…Who am I trying to find?_

          …

                                              _I can’t remember._

Wonderful. This was wonderful.

Adam pulled up the memos tab of his retinal display and flipped through his field notes, pulling up what Miller had told him. Pausing under the overhang of one of the store fronts, he exhaled a shuddering breath. A hand lifted, fingers wiping the sweat off his brow.

               _… How long has it been since I last sweat like this?_

It wasn’t important.

Oh, it was that guy.

That guy was important.

The effort it took to convince himself to move was tremendous. Just a moment. I’ll get going in a moment. He fished one of the bottles of water out of his coat, cracking the seal and drawing it to lips that had never felt quite this parched. It was gone in seconds, the slow crawl of his throat down before snapping upward again painting a picturesque image of what your own skin feeling wrong felt like.

            _Wrong wrong wrong wrong fucking wrong._

He almost missed winters in Detroit.

Moving again, he peeled away from the store front and crossed the street, following the mapped route on his internal GPS. His retinal display wasn’t helping his nerves any. The internal CPU temperature of his augments were reading uncomfortably high at all times, and steadily climbing. Tentatively, he popped the coverings open on his arms as he moved, hoping the air passing over them would cool the systems.

        Well… at first it kind of helped.

                                      …It dropped a whole two degrees Celcius…

              Nothing could really cool him, however.

 _My fucking brain is roasting_ , was the only thought he could muster.

It was overheating and part of him wished it had been replaced too. Liquid cooling… Can you liquid cool augmentations? Can you liquid cool a human brain? Wishful thinking.

Is this the right building?

                                                       _… I’m certain it has to be._

                                                 _Right?_

             _Fuck this heat…_

Adam wanted to go home more badly than ever. That was the right building. Exhale. Breathe. Inhale. Breathe. Exhale. You can do this. The heat isn’t that bad.

         _… Yeah sure, buddy._

He swallowed heavily. The moment he stepped in through the front door, he was certain he saw heat radiating in those wobbly little waves off of his arms. Was he imagining it? Probably.

“I’m here to speak with…”

                           _…Shit.  
_

                                                           _…What’s his name?_

             “…Mister Mahmudi.”

Hesitation. Was that right?

“Oh! Right this way, sir. He is expecting you.”

                                             …

      _… Fuck this heat._


	11. // the_fountain

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> WARNING: This personal ficlet contains IMPLICATIONS OF DEATH. It is NOT graphic, but it is nonetheless one of the themes of this piece. 
> 
> FEATURING: Adam Jensen (Canon Character)
> 
> INFO: Based on a prompt with the theme of "Finding My Character as a Ghost". It was supplied by a friend also playing Adam, so it got a little weird. I like weird.

                        “How **long** has it been?”

The wind is silent. It was howling earlier… It was all you could hear.

That’s a lie…

                                                    _My heartbeat._

You could ~~feel~~ hear your heartbeat. It’s … there. It’s beating… you think? 

                _… What does it matter?_

“You left me **alone**.”

You’re not really sure why you’re saying this. He won’t hear you. He won’t respond. He never responds. He always watches you with eyes that know the sort of peace you haven’t felt in years.

                                                _I haven’t felt anything in years._

You keep waiting. In between every breath you take, every sentence you speak, every time you find your courage to speak to him.

To speak to this **phantom**.

“He isn’t real.”

                                 That’s what your psychologist said.

         She clearly knows the truth.

                                                     “It’s trauma, Adam.”

                  You can still hear her voice.

What if… it isn’t just trauma?

                                You’re looking up into eyes that are blue… blue.

You remember when your eyes were blue. Before the first attack, before you were changed forever, before the augmentations, before Hengsha, before Panchaea, before the world fell apart.

It cracked open and you witnessed its molten insides.

                                   You heard your heartbeat.

              As you drifted to the ocean floor, your conscious mind faded.

You remember… blue.

The ocean all around you, the weight crushing inward.

The weight of ~~your failure~~ the ocean’s dark depths, cold and frigid.

                                       … F r e e z i n g …

“Why won’t you leave?” you ask him. He’s been here for months. He’s hovering in the fountain, over the water. His feet touch it but every time you look down, you can’t… see his feet, his legs, his… anything. You only see him when you look in his eyes.

                  _…His skin is so pale._

You never felt… scared… when you looked at him. You felt comfort. You felt belonging. You felt familiarity.

                                       It took you a while to realize who he was.

Long nights, where you sat on the bench in front of the fountain. You watched him, as he lingered, silent and unmoving. His skin was illuminated, like light filtering through water overhead.

                    Oil black hiding gleaming gold. He’s rusted now.

It’s been so long.

                          _I can count the scars._

                                              _I remember where you got each._

                   _I can see the stamp. It never faded._

                                   _It’s faded now…_

You’re not sure why he won’t leave. You’re here, aren’t you? Isn’t this you? Isn’t this your body, your pain, your skin, your aches and your sadness?

Isn’t this… your ghost?

                                              The ghost of you.

                   _I died._

                                     _I shouldn’t be here._

              _Why won’t you let me go?_

                                                               _Please…_

_It wasn’t supposed to be like this._

                                      _…_

                                                               _I tried…_

                          _I’m so tired…_

And you can’t help but feel

                             like he’s trying

                                       to bring you home.

                                                  You belong to the sea.

                                                                Your heart doesn’t beat.

                            …

                                           Y o u   a r e   n o t   r e a l 


	12. // golden_skies

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> WARNING: n/a
> 
> FEATURING: Adam Jensen (Canon Character); Václav Koller (Canon Character)
> 
> INFO: Based on the prompt "In a Joyful Mood" supplied by my friend who plays Václav Koller in our roleplays. Cute shit incoming.

              _“Jensen Jensen!”_

He is… **sunlight**.

                                         The sun who never slept.

It has been… a year? It has been a year… since you first pried that shell open. Covered in anarchist buttons with funky little phrases. It’s plated in Chinese bootlegs and twisted together with wires only he understands.

               A vibrant pocket of **colour** and **life** in a world where everything

                              is grey…

He was never so grey. He was shy and he was private and he was…

               …maybe a little **scared**.

                                 _“Are you home, man?“_

You manage to pull yourself off the couch, tossing the blanket aside. Heavy footsteps carry you across your living room, and you peer out the peephole. He’s smiling, and like he knows you’re definitely checking, he squints back through the shallow lens.

                                               _“Yeah you are!”_

You smile, a chuckle on your tongue, and you open the door. He almost takes a spill, stumbling slightly and catching himself. He holds his hands out in front of him, and he’s braced with a bright grin on his face.

                      _“There you are! Look at you, taking a day off!”_

“I do that sometimes, Vaclav.”

                                 _“Could have fooled me, man.”_

He’s bundled up in that hoodie under his jacket. It’s the one that’s torn and weatherbeaten, with the hood half-scrunched up over the back of his head. The left arm is shredded, like he took a spill at some point. It’s got patches sewn into it, from bands he got to see. He told you that it was the one he collects them on. His trophy jacket.

He’s standing there grinning wider by the second, and you can’t help but laugh, finally holding your arms open. He issues a restrained shout and shoves himself into your arms, his own wrapping around behind your neck. You tuck yours around him, and you stagger back into your apartment, tucking your nose down against his neck.

The **light** in your eyes.

                 The **joy** in your expression.

                                  The **delight** on every breath.

He’s happy to see you like he’s happy to see so few people.

                 …Maybe not anyone else.

It’s a thought that thaws the ice that’s been clinging to your soul since Panchaea. Winters aren’t unbearable anymore. You nudge the door closed with the toe of your boot, and you walk across your living room with him. He’s sealed tightly against you, and you finally drop to the sofa with him still locked against the front of your body.

                                _“You’re gunna crush me!”_

He’s laughing, and he finally unwraps his arms, long enough to clutch your face by the edges of your jaw. He pulls your face from his neck and he scruffs his metal palms across your beard before pulling you down for a kiss. Across the forehead, brows, over your nose where faded freckles dust the skin. He finally finds your mouth and he can’t seal lips to yours.

                    He’s never been able, because the smiles always prevent it.

Your eyes are closed, but you open them long enough to catch a glimpse of the light in his eyes. The grin you’re wearing is still so **foreign** , but he’s helping you learn that language just like he’s been helping you learn Czech.

“I thought my night couldn’t get any better,” you confide.

                               _“It’s about to get soooo much worse.”_

“Bring it on. I’m ready for that terrible shit.”

                     _“Oh man, you’re on. I hope you’re ready for…”_

That pause, the linger, the smile that spreads. Your expression mirrors it, and it only magnifies when he finally speaks.

                                  _“Gross fuckin’ cuddles.”_

“Really testing my resolve tonight, huh?”

                             _“We’re gunna destroy your willpower, man!”_

“Oh noooo.” It’s so awful, he’s so awful, you’re both so… so **awful**.

                        And you never want that awful gross feeling to stop.

You’re pretty sure this is what they call ‘ **love** ’.

                                     Nah.

                                                    Couldn’t be.


	13. // patchnotes_7.041

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> WARNING: n/a
> 
> FEATURING: Francis Pritchard (Canon Character)
> 
> INFO: I was talking about System of a Down with a friend and I dug up one of my favorite songs by them. Toxicity is easily a Francis song for me. The lulls of softer sound in between spikes of harsh, angry sound describes my Francis. He lashes out and flinches back. Pushed too far, he puffs up, but he’s never been good at sustaining that burn. But more than that, Francis doesn’t believe in “I can’t”. He finds a different way, a different route, a different pathway. But Francis knows he can’t fix people.

> Conversion...  
>  Software, version 7.0
> 
> ... Eating seeds is a pastime activity.
> 
> The toxicity of our city.
> 
> What, do you own the world?  
>  How do you own disorder?

  
Francis is alone.  
He's always alone.  
He's tucked up on his couch, laptop on his legs.

It's dark.  
The lights are out.  
The glow of blue.  
Of blue.  
He's blue.  
He thought he was fire.  
He's blue.  
He never wanted this colour.

It washes his features out. They're gone.

Patching.  
Another hole.  
Another bug.  
Another error.  
Another . . .

. . . Another.

His hand leaves the keys finally, tucks thin fingers down into the bowl.

They come up sunny.

Sunflowers in a field. The skies are blue.

He doesn't want the blue.

He thinks, because nobody likes it when he speaks.

He wishes he could fix people.  
Their problems, their fears, their fractures, their dreams, their ... them.

He wishes he could fix people how he fixes these programs and firewalls.

He's not strong enough for that.

You can't even fix your own code...


	14. // lonely_nights

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> WARNING: The following personal ficlet contains ALCOHOLISM.
> 
> FEATURING: Adam Jensen (Canon Character); Francis Pritchard (Canon Character)
> 
> INFO: Based on the prompt "Drinking" supplied to me. A little bit of non-dating Jensard co-worker stuff.

You aren’t supposed to be drinking in your office.

> **“Okay but consider the following: I do what I want.”**

     That’s the elaborate excuse you had planned in your head if ever anyone

                             _**walked in on**_ you just

                  kind of  

                               d _**o**_    w **n** _i  n_ g  a **w** h _o l_    **_e_ b**ot  **t l** e  
                                                            …of whiskey.

Things never really turned out the way you planned. From day one, everything just sort of **fell apart** before you could even get the plans off the drawing board. It’s funny how that goes. Funny in the “I can’t believe I got **shot** , woah” kind of way, not the …

                                    _**enjoyable**_ … sort.

Thankfully, this was just one tech support guy standing in your office, leering at you as he usually did.

              Wordlessly staring with half-lidded eyes heavy with 

    … **judgement**.

_Hey man, fuck you._

                                      You choose to be _ **civil**_ today.  
                                          As much as you can manage,  
                                                                  at any rate.

“Yeah, Frank? What is it?”

                                   “ _Really, Jensen?_ ”

Your nose bridge scrunched up on one side, giving him that uneven scowl-smirk you wore so well. People said **_smiles_** looked better on you, but you so rarely found a reason to wear them.

             Never were fond of make up, either, so they’ll have to **deal**.

“ **What.** ”

                  It wasn’t a question. He knew it.

                             “ _If Sarif catches you drinking on the clock-_ ”

“He won’t.”

                                              “ _Look._ ”

“I’m looking.”

He **_hated_** your sass, but he wouldn’t quite feel at home without it. Not that Francis would ever admit such a thing. He kept everyone at arm’s length, even if they already were onto him.

The expression on Francis’ face is something akin to tired annoyance.

But not quite.

                                   “ _Jensen, I-_ ”

Is he ever going to say what he wants?

Francis tucks his tablet in his arms and his expression… _withers_.

No longer is it severe, angry, annoyed or even fatigued. He wears his concern openly now, and it’s a change that takes you by **surprise**. Francis can see it in your face, and he suddenly looks **guilty** , like he shouldn’t have done that.

_**There’s no apology.** _

                                          “ _I’m… concerned, okay?_ ”

That’s… new.

                                “ _You never really used to do this, not here._ ”

That’s… true.

                                      “ _I know I’m not your first choice, but._ ”

No, not for most things.

>  “ _Do you… want someone to talk to?_ ”

…You can’t see it, but you can

                                   **DEFINITELY FEEL**

                   the way your expression just flinched at the very idea.

                                         …

                                                      …

He’s silent, and so are you. Neither of you can really comprehend the fact that _Francis **Fucking** Pritchard_ just asked you if you’re okay, if you need to talk, and told you he’s worried. For the first time in a while, you looked down and to the side, unwilling or perhaps unable to meet his eyes.

**He hasn’t started to leave yet.**

You’re **scared** to say anything. It might come out _crooked_ , or with _emotion_ you didn’t intend to be there. It’s… _uncomfortable_ to be offered _human treatment_ , even if it’s what you so dearly _crave_.

                      “ _Would you like me to pick up some beer…_ ”

Your eyes move their line of sight upward.

                                  “ _And we can order out tonight?_ ”

“… Yeah.”

                             “ _We can catch up on your shows, okay?_ ”

You **nod**.

                   And maybe it’s the **alcohol**.  
                              Or maybe you’re just **lonely** after all.  
                      
                     But suddenly **Francis** is the best company  
                                                      you’ve had in a while.  
  
                                       …  
                                                         …

It’s funny how nothing ever goes  
according to plan.


	15. // people_change

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> WARNING: The following personal ficlet contains CANNIBALISM. It is NOT graphic, but it is nonetheless one of the themes of this piece.
> 
> FEATURING: Adam Jensen (Canon Character); David Sarif (Canon Character); ALTERNATE UNIVERSE
> 
> INFO: This is a request from SoothsayerC/DinkyIcarus that involves some dark and morbid themes around Adam Jensen and David Sarif. When the premise of David keeping Adam’s limbs that were removed and having them prepared like normal meat crawled its way into my private messages, I of course had flashbacks to my most favored of classy cannibals: Hannibal Lecter. So what’s come of this is an alternate universe version of David Sarif who is obssessed with Adam, and more specifically, the very meat and even the genetics he’s made of. I feel like I don’t need to say it, but this isn’t really my personal way I write David, but nonetheless, it was a request I absolutely enjoyed a whole fucking lot. Hannibal Lecter is definitely one of my first “loves” when it came to the horror genre. Silence of the Lambs was a great book, a great movie, and they really just made a classic. I can never do it justice, but I tried.

It's...

A crackle of static, the snap of pain, the seizing of limbs, there's fire in your nerves, there's blood, there's weight leaving, lifting, coming away from your body your body your body's on fire parts are missing they're gone they're gone they're-

... seven at night.

... Night.

You never liked the night, the evening was full of skittering fear that clawed its way across glossy, rain-blackened roads in the back streets of Detroit. It's disquieting. It's...

... late.

You said you'd meet him for dinner. You didn't like the tone in his voice when he said-

"See you tonight, Adam."

Why was your skin crawling? The sensation, clawing up your spine, making the muscles twist around a steel tower. You didn't know that tone. That wasn't his voice.

Something happened, you're sure of it.

"David..."

You hesitate at the door to his penthouse apartment. Your knuckles hover over the door. You always knock, even though he has a doorbell. It felt more personal.

You don't want it to feel personal this time.

Your hand shifts, and you press a finger to the buzzer.

It rings.

You hate the sound today, for some reason...

The door opens and you remember the smile of a man who was shy of twice your age. Maybe he just felt older because of the fatigue that clung to his bones. Fear, tired worry, paranoia saturating the muscles that were no longer as fit or spry.

His smile is foreign today.

You put it out of your mind. You stepped inside, and your steps were heavy as you always remembered... Heavy. The air felt heavy, too.

What is this?

Something in your soul compells you to swallow, and forbids you from turning your head toward the kitchen. He has people preparing the food.

Don't turn your head.  
Why does this feel wrong?  
Something is off.  
Put it out of your mind.

"You really went all out tonight, David."

He laughs, and the sound is warm, falling glass against the laminate tile. There's fire crackling in the next room, it dazzles off the glass.

Something is off.

He lifts a hand and the way he calls you son so casually always made you feel safe. Not today. Today it is a word that looms and hovers in your mind. It's flitting around the borders of your mind and asking you why it sounds a little too-

"Have a seat, Adam."

His voice tugs you from the dark recesses of your mind, it pulls you to the surface and dusts off the shoulders of your coat.

They have been gathering dust for six months.

"Dinner will be ready in a few."

He sounds casual. He's jovial. There's an upbeat quality to him, excitement almost. He's happy to have you here.

"Yeah."

Something is off.

You cross the room and you hang your coat up. Pushing your sleeves back, you roll them and use the snap closure to keep them up.

You're sitting. This table never really felt comfortable.

Two people at a single table.

That first night you joked.

You can't joke now.

He's joined you in short order, taking a seat not far from you. He won't sit at the other end, never has when people he likes are over.

David always had this habit. He sat as far from those at business dinners as he could manage, and closer to those he tolerated better.

He sits in the chair opposite you, despite the long table, it is at the end and it is ...

... close.

It feels strange.

"I got some good stuff, son. This is top tier, rare cut."

You do your best to listen to him, explaining why he was excited about tonight's meal.

"You know, usually I prefer filet steak for this one," he told you, and his elbow resting on the table with his augmented hand gesturing is... normal.

None of this feels normal.

Something is off...

"But you know, I got busy. I couldn't get around to cooking what I ordered."

"Did you have it cured?"

He perks up, like the words you said stimulated him. He is suddenly being engaged and he loves that. He appreciates the back and forth and he always has.

"You're damn right! I know some guys in the business, do catering and all of this fancy shmancy shit." His hand is moving again. It's always moving.

It's weaving patterns in the air and you can swear that there are trails solidifying in reality, pulling at the edges of your conscious mind.

Trying to tell you something but you don't speak the language.

CASIE isn't talking to you.

"Does the phrase 'Cortador de Jamón' mean anything to you, son?"

The shrug you offer up is non-committal and your words don't help any, either.

"Yeah, I didn't think so. Well, in simple terms, they've got this cured ham on a serving spit and they slice it real fine. They serve it up to you at the table."

That sounded like-

"Sounds a bit over the top."

He laughs. The sound is sharded glass laying on the table. It's part of the placement.

"That's the whole point! A little excess isn't necessarily a bad thing!" He gestures to you. "You've gotta live a little bit, Adam. This whole world is going to hell in a hand basket and sometimes it's nice to just indulge while you still can."

You couldn't disagree with that.

"So I finally got time, you know? And I figured I'd share it with you. It's absolutely amazing. I snuck a piece earlier, just couldn't wait really."

The cart was being rolled over, and every squeak of the wheels bores another hole in your skull. Another hollowpoint round joining the first. Another memory fading.

Another... thought.

Something is ... off.

The servers who set the plates are jovial though brief in what they have to say. They are simply happy for the paycheck, you surmise. Dressed in black, a red brand - no, a logo, on the chest. You don't pay much attention to it.

You're tired and the scent of meat is making you hungry.

You forgot to eat lunch.

Stepping to the cart, the leg that is on display is long. Pale. You suppose that's what curing does. Cooking and food were never huge interests outside of eating it.

Cut off behind the knee. A shank. A bit large for a pig.

You put it out of your mind, but something is off.

The air feels heavy and oppressive. It's a reason you can't find.

The serving men are cutting it. What did he call them? You can't ...

... remember.

Things are fuzzy.  
Things don't feel right.  
Things feel dream-like.

What... is going on?

It's on your plate.

Generous servings? You wouldn't know. The fanciest thing ever ate was ay that sushi night that your CO in the precinct took the boys out on after a you all finished a hard bit of-

"Well don't just sit there," David says. "Try a bit!"

Ah... lost in your head again.

What were you-

...oh, right.

You try a piece.

Sinking in, painted porcelain through rubied red, glazed through with darker. Darker...

There's not really any fat in this meat. It's not marbled. Where on earth do you find pork that lean? Maybe it's beef.

The more you chew, the less it tastes like pork.

"Good stuff. I got my money's worth this time."

Your jaw moves.

The laceration of white through red.

Carving.

Crushing.

Like their knives through the shank.

"Lil' bit buttery. Not too much. I like that."

Another bite, there's something you recognize but you don't...

A thought dies on your tongue.

There it is. Veal. It's... like veal.

"Not bad. Doesn't really taste like any pork I've had before though. More mild."

David is wearing his winning smiles, on the cover of every magazine.

"Well, preparing meat in different ways can change the flavor, son."

"I suppose." That's all you can manage.

David is enjoying the carved pieces. It feels excessive to a degree that makes the meal strange, and ever always, something is off. You're not sure what it is, still.

Your fingers lift, and black and gold joins red and white. A union of metal and flesh and-

Why are birds flitting around at the back of your skull? They're stirred and upset with nowhere to go. Anxiety. It's these servers. You don't know them, and they have knives that your mind is latching to, and...

...putting you on edge.

Time isn't something you're conscious of anymore. More meat is gone from the shank. You see glimpses of stained white bone in the carefully opened section. You can almost smell the antiseptic of the surgery room, clinging to your skin and your face and your hair and your...

No.

Silence hangs, before you push the plate back. A breath hangs on your lips. It feels like you aren't real because something is off and you can't figure out what. A ghost watching you over your shoulder, whispering terribly kind things in your ear.

"Somethin' wrong?" David inquires. His tone is full of concern. You don't like that tone. You don't want him to worry.

"No, I'm good, Boss. I'm just tired." Is it a lie if it's half true?

He wears an amicable smile. David eventually nods, a gesture on loop, and stands from his seat. He rolls his hand to pull the cart back and the servers comply. The world complies, slows its aching turn on a cruel axis, for but a moment of its precious time. "Well I hope you enjoyed dinner, Adam. It was nice to have you over again."

You stand, and your hands on the chair move it back under the table's edge. "Yeah. It was good, Boss. Thanks."

He laughs... the sound is glass in your skin, lodged and non-compliant. It does not answer to the whims of David Sarif.

"I'm glad."

He walks you to the door, and once there, holds up your coat and you oblige, letting him help you into it. Turning, he tucks it up around your neck and pulls the collar up the way you like it to sit. It's tall, and his hands clutch it with the careful adoration he's always regarded you with.

Aging eyes lift to look up at yours, and his smile is kind and generous. "Go home and get some rest, son. You've been working hard and you deserve the vacation time."

His hands leave your lapels and you nod to him, managing the ghost of a smile that feels no more real than you yourself do when you look in the shattered mirror.

"Have a good night, Boss."


	16. // madame

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> WARNING: n/a
> 
> FEATURING: Adam Jensen (Canon Character); Madame Beep (The World's Best Siamese with an Augmented Leggy)
> 
> INFO: I had a stupid cute idea of Nadir’s siamese cat, Beep, harassing the piss out of my friend's Adam very gently to encourage him to feed her breakfast, so here you go. Some adorable shit.

—————————————————–  
❱❱❱❱❱ PRAGUE, CZECH REPUBLIC  
MAY 17, 2031 // 7:28 AM  
—————————————————–

Buzzing.

A fucking incessant buzzing, it was in his head and it was-

Off now. Nadir peeled away from the front of Adam’s body and switched it off. He curled back into Adam’s arms long enough to press a kiss to the spot under his chin, nearly to his throat. An apology passed his lips.

“I am sorry, Qalbi. I know it is your day off.” The quiet groan from the agent told his feelings on the subject all too clearly, though he relented his grip on Nadir as he eased back. “I must go out early. I be back at noon, yes?”

A small grunt was all he was given. Adam rolled onto his back and mumbled.

Moving from the room, Nadir’s daily routine began. Showering, brushing hair and teeth, dressing and-

“Adam?”

He shifted his head, peering toward the doorway through tiredly squinted eyes. Nadir’s expression was apologetic. “Could you feed Beep at seven, please?”

The groan could be heard again, but he nodded this time. “Thank you, Qalbi.”

It seemed like Adam blinked and he was out the door and gone, but two more hours of rest came all too easily to a man who was so exhausted. He rolled onto his stomach and laid with his cheek against the sheets. The slow draw of exhale left him, and he was back to the inside of his head in seconds.

Restful, sweet, precious, fleeting sleep.

… And a paw slowly reached up, patting around on his nose until he rolled over.

But Beep was not deterred by such tactics. She hopped up onto the bed, and the willowy siamese walked up onto Adam, across his body, and decided to stand…

… squarely on his cheek, with all four of her little paws.

And then tilted her head back and issued a single, loud, demanding, “Mah!”

Adam slowly opened his eyes, cheek mushed down and inward by this determined little lady, and managed a soft chuckle.

“Awrigh… Breahfash.” He shooed with a hand, and she sat politely on the floor, nosing at the air and trilling at him among the usual namesake noises.


	17. // punk

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> WARNING: n/a
> 
> FEATURING: Adam Jensen (Canon Character); Václav Koller (Canon Character)
> 
> INFO: It’s become pretty obvious to me that my OTP Deus Ex Ship is Vaclav and Adam (VACDAM!!) and I get kind of stupid and emotional writing their shit. There’s just some sort of weird harmony in a tall, elegantly refined man sunk so deep in his head he can’t see the light finding it in a scuzzy punk rock aug doc. A man who can remind Adam how to live and enjoy life, remind him it’s okay to be human and to feel things, and help him discover himself in ways he never even considered. The Koller I roleplay with is unconfident, reclusive, and keeps to himself, but slowly coming out of his shell. He’s learning to face the world and feels more brave with Adam there with him every step of the way. It’s terrifying out there… but he’s not facing it alone anymore, and that makes it less scary. I wanted to write something a couple years down the line, where Adam and Vaclav have been dating for a while now, and Adam sees definitive proof of the real progress that Vaclav has made, and of the growing confidence he’s displaying. This might get a bit emotional, but it’s a good kind of feelios, I promise. ♥

—————————————————–  
❱❱❱❱❱ PRAGUE, CZECH REPUBLIC  
AUGUST 23, 2031 // 2:44 PM  
—————————————————–

Work.

Days were a cycle on repeat, where daylight bled into night seamlessly, only for the sharp skip from dark to dawn-

_Oh._

Fuck it was morning again.

_And it was morning again-_

**_..morning aga-_ **

**...again.**

> "Shower, pound your breakfast and coffee, grab your wallet and ID, get dressed and pull Vaclav in against your side. Kiss him and remember not to apologize for having a job. Force yourself to pull away and head out the door."

Those were the hardest orders he ever had to follow, and they weren't even coming from Miller.

_It was just life._

Fridays rolled around, and Adam was thankful that his schedule had been predictable enough for so long that weekends were _weekends_ again. The walk home wasn't the zombie shuffle just yet, but he was getting there.

A moment of pause came, long enough that he finally got blindsided by a yawn. Oh, right. Despite all of his augmentations, despite being a walking seige engine, he was still victim to the fatigue. It tasted welcome on his tongue today, like Nye's after weeks of having to settle for something less than his favorite.

 _There's an idea._ Maybe he'd have a drink when he got home and made sure nothing had to be done.

His heavy steps carried him up the stairs of a complex that had seen a few rennovations recently. It was looking better than when he first moved in, for certain. the courtyard was still uneven, but the walls had work done, and the cracks in the building had been patched in. Progress is progress, he reminded himself.

As he approached his apartment door, he stooped to pick up the news he never grabbed this morning, tucking it under his arm. Sluggish fingers punched the code for his lock in, and he opened the door.

_Unlatched...  
Beeping..._

And the door closed behind him, shutting out the sounds of the world in a way that dropped his reality into a more serene silence in seconds. In the distance, he could hear his radio chattering away. Lazarus didn't greet him today, but rather music. Not his usual. Something Vaclav left on.

_Coat off...  
Shades drawn..._

_Another yawn..._

Tired hands set the news on the shelf by the doorway, and he pauses...

... It's a good thing this damn plant doesn't really need water very often. But its like it's always happy to see him in that quiet way that is non-judgmental. It's like it says " _it's okay to take care of yourself first because I will be here later_ ". Not many people are like that.

What had the world come to when an inanimate plant cared more about giving you space and down time than actual people?

As he moved from it, his hand lifted, subconsciously patting it on the way past like it was a dog. It occurred to Adam suddenly how bizarre this gesture would have appeared to anyone else, but he tried to convince himself the plant appreciated it.

The shuffle across his living room was accompanied by hands lifting, clutching at his pullover and yanking it off. Adam pulled his head back and to the side, unsnagging it from the edge of the mirror shades' frame and letting it drop to the floor behind his sofa. Fingers slid along the back of it, relishing what little sensation he could get out of the old thing. It was a struggle some days to not tuck onto it and never move, but knowing his home was no longer empty, cold and lonely helped.

Gathering the black tank he'd left on the back of it this morning, he eased it on as he walked into the bedroom. The thud of soles was hollow and weary, but the closer to his temple he got, the more layers of fatigue were shed and scattered across the hallway floors like feathers from wings that tried to heal.

What pretty imagery, too pretty for him...

The creak of his door was just as welcome as the respite of walking over the threshold, but something spiked in his mind.

> **> f e a r**

Vaclav wasn't home, and the slow build of alarms was creeping into his mind, before the glass shattered and they blared like sirens. Danger and warnings and cautionary tales of how everything was wrong and everything was wrong and he was here and now Adam was at the front door and there was-

_... a latch._

The door opened, and Adam's face was pale as he stared down into recognition. A face peered back, soft with skin that rarely saw the sunlight and hair that had seen neater days framing bright sleepless eyes.

"Uhhhhh, you good man?"

_Vaclav came home?_

"You look like you've seen a ghost."

**_Vaclav came home._ **

He held out the Slurpee in his hands. Bright red- no, pale. Pink. Frosted, frozen. One of his weird melon ones. Adam only liked the red ones. Adam was stubborn and insisted on the original he remembered as a kid.

"You want some?" Vaclav asked, wiggling the cup to try and snap Adam out of the daze, before lifting the plastic bag in his hand. "I got some of those burritos and burgers and shit that's in the wrappers. You know, the heat-up ones!"

Adam didn't even like the melon Slurpees, but he took it from him and auto-piloted a sip from it before making a face and handing it back. "Thanks."

Vaclav laughed brightly. "C'mon man, you don't gotta humor me! It's okay you don't like them. I wasn't really expecting you to take a drink." He wobbled the hand holding the cup around. Large size. Usually he got the biggest ones, that made Adam's heart quiver at the thought.

A moment of silence passed between them, before Adam said, "You... went to the petrol station?"

Vaclav nodded a few times, and smiled. "Yeah! It's a nice day out. I kind of got a craving for some food that's bad for me so I walked over. I figure I would get back same time as you, roughly." The smile crawled wider, into a crooked grin. "Seems like I wasn't far off the mark, huh?"

Adam's expression shifted, and there was a warmth that touched into the area around his eyes. A smile bloomed and spread, overgrowth running rampant, and the colour came back to his face. "Yeah. Pretty spot on."

The alarms had quieted, and he stepped back and held the door open. Vaclav moved past him, but not before stopping to lift up onto the toes of his scuzzy Converse and press a kiss to Adam's mouth. He tipped down into it, a smile still tugging the corners of his lips. Vaclav continued into the apartment, and Adam closed the door quietly, locking it and stepping after him.

Colours were... vibrant and surreal. Things seemed lighter, brighter, more... happy. Spinning up the engines to release quickfire bursts of seratonin that chained off into a chemical reaction that utterly

**s  
a  
n  
k**

into his brain, saturating it and _uplifting_ him. It drew into a single, finite moment, and he realized something important was happening.

 _Vaclav's confidence was growing._ He was blooming. He was becoming more sure of himself, more brave, and more... comfortable. He was feeling safer and more capable.

Adam paused, vision unfocused as he looked at a spot on the far floor, but not really... at it. Past it, through it...

Emotion welled, and he was so happy. He was watching Vaclav change for the better. He was-

> "Jensen Jensen!"

It pulled him out of his head, and he looked toward the kitchen.

"You want the burritos or the burgers, man?"

A smile. His smile. Vaclav was wearing his own heart on his sleeve. He stole Adam's heart and stitched it onto his jacket and he stole his smile and was wearing it like his own and he was...

... He was so lovely to see.

"Burgers. You know me."

Adam told himself he wasn't going to make things weird right now, but he told himself he'd tell him later...

_He'd tell Vaclav how proud of him he was._


	18. // on_gods

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> WARNING: n/a
> 
> FEATURING: Nadir Ibn Al-Dhahabi (OC)
> 
> INFO: I felt prose-y earlier in a chat I was talking in, and the core of this speech flowed so naturally that it felt… right. I was taken with the notion of incorporating it into a character of mine, and given that Nadir is a muse who is associated with fire, I could think of no character better suited for it. I shamelessly enjoy the trope of calm, quiet villain monologues, so here’s Nadir doing one of those. It is more inspiring than sinister, I feel, but Nadir was never a terrible man, merely a man caught in terrible circumstances.

“I was called Vesuvius once, and I accepted the title, for Vesuvius buried Pompeii in its wrath.”

His fingers shifted, and they clasped glittering gold around the edges of one of his shot glasses. Stout and cubic, they bore strange raised and depressed sections in the tinted glass. Mechanically set into the main body, they were purposeful in design, not mere abstractions to gawk at. If one held it parallel and peered from one side of the details and into the other, they formed an approximation of a double helix, the building blocks of life as we knew it.

“But it cooled and it quieted,” he continued. “As a volcano goes dormant, it blooms verdant and new. I have taken this to heart.”

It was always peculiar to hear Nadir speak with his language centre augmentations and throat prosthesis synced up. The stilted quality of his spoken English vanished and no longer did he struggle to recall words he only needed when meetings and press conferences reared their ugly heads.

“Without knowing its story, one could scarcely fathom that this was a mountain that shook the foundations of an entire land, buried a city so fast that its people were locked in time, and bellowed enough rage and ash into the sky that it became a legend.”

Nadir crossed the room, and lifting the glass to his mouth, there was hesitation. He left it to linger before his lips. The slow exhale was the only indication of how deeply threaded he was through his innermost thoughts, fears and worries. A more vulnerable side of Belltower was on display; a side he’d hidden away behind lock and key.

“A legend… and now look how peaceful it is; how beautiful, how much it feels like home.”

Home was a word so foreign on his tongue. It felt wrong and came out crooked and awkward, as though he had never spoken it his whole life.

“All of this reverance, for volcanoes mark the tombs of sleeping gods. They are the crown upon their holy head. They are the fountain of their power.” It was all spoken with such great conviction that it could only have originated from the seat of his heart. It was truth he knew to be so.

“Deep underground, ichor boils. It seeps and flows; it churns and it runs through them. They dream as gods with gold in their veins.”

A moment of silence accompanied the first swallow of whiskey from his glass, passing lips that knew grand speeches more intimately than lovers. His sigh was not one of unease, but of futility.

“You may never appease a god, just as you may never appease a volcano locked in the throes of wrath and grief. It is unstoppable, a force that will be heard and it will be heeded.”

Did he know this from experience, or was it perhaps his fantasies bleeding through? His expression as he turned back to face his guest could not be read. No cipher would ever divulge the secrets that his pale eyes reveled in, their lights turned low and forming a haunting back-light.

“If perhaps we learn only one thing from our time on this wretched little ball of suffering, I hope that it might be to learn from the world around us. Not merely to be nurturing, kind and good, but to know that wrath is the most human of emotions.”

There was a certain sharp quality to the soft clink of the glass settling on his desk. In the serenity of his home - with its astringent scent and scrubbers rendering the air quality as synthetic as he felt - everything seemed too perfect. It was too calm, too comforting, and too regulated to ever feel real. Authentic wood and leather could never simulate life. Less a home and more a mausoleum, Nadir was a spirit who could not fathom he was already dead.

The day that Bob Page crawled into his life was the day that it ended.

”Your anger puts you closer to the gods than you shall ever be in your lifetime. Know that you will be heeded if you truly desire to make your voice heard.”

Cornered, a bull was a dangerous creature. In time, they would come to realize this as fact.

“Shout your fire to the heavens, and knock on the gate to paradise with hell on your heels.”


	19. // fall_into_dust

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> WARNING: n/a
> 
> FEATURING: Adam Jensen (Canon Character); Megan Reed (Canon Character; Implied)
> 
> INFO: Slow beat songs always remind me of bittersweet things. Lo-Fi Hiphop was playing tonight, and I felt the urge to write something a little bittersweet as well. The Adam I pilot may have moved on from Megan, but there are still things he misses. In the early days of their relationship - when she loved him for him, and not for his genetic code - there were lazy mornings, of whispered sweet nothings in bed. There were kisses and there were soft giggles. There were quiet murmurs of “I love you” spoken into the crook of his neck, into her soft hair. There was something there once, and it fell into dust, no more, like it never had been there at all. Sometimes, he misses that, even if he knows he broke off their relationship for a reason. It just wasn’t meant to be. But that doesn’t mean that the good never happened.

—————————————————–  
❱❱❱❱❱ a quiet place, neither here nor there  
—————————————————–

smoke in the air. it’s nothing new.  
it’s mixed with dust you left there.  
a terrible thing, this feeling in your  
stomach. you’re never hungry.

you never talk when you’re alone.  
that’s how you like it, you said.  
your voice is tired like the rest.

your body feels heavier every time  
you come home, to sink down,  
into your sheets. they never once  
betrayed your trust. they held you  
tighter than she ever did, and  
kept you calmer than she ever could.

isn’t that just like you? to tell  
yourself that you don’t need anyone  
and that the creaking of the wooden  
beams overhead is all the sound  
you’ll ever need.

you were never very good at lying…

but you wear it so well.


	20. // cold_wreckage

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> WARNING: n/a
> 
> FEATURING: Adam Jensen (Canon Character)
> 
> INFO: I felt inspiration in the thought of water. Still and glassy on top, churning and vile beneath. Hiding it’s secrets, I see. Well, around here, we like to pry your secrets from cold, dead, fishy-sea-hands. So much of this ‘inner turmoil’ shit from my Adam is so, so very vague, and that’s exactly the way I like it. I hope you do, too!

What’s it like?

“What do you mean?”

To know < t h e e n d > of all of this.

Ah… “Dying?”

What’s it like… to breathe in the chill of her?

“It tastes like-” Darkness. It’s building around you- no, it- she was always there. She always existed. She’s around you now. You live there, and she lives within your veins. There’s water in your lungs, and you don’t need air anymore.

You don’t need to < b r e a t h e >

…because that’s for humans. That’s for people. That’s not for… machines.

“… like memories you forgot.”

Did you forget her?

…Did you? No, you could never forget her. The way she wore the stars in her eyes, and the sun around her throat. Her skin was never quite right. Too cold, too pale, too lifeless. And yet she was the warmest you ever felt in your life.

You recall her embrace.  
You recall her kiss.  
You recall

…

the sound of gunfire and an inferno crackling around your ears.

You’re a failure, you know that?

“That’s a bit harsh.”

Life works in absolutes, Adam.

“Progress is progress, no matter how many steps you take.”

Did your lovely little therapist tell you that? Did she tell you how you’re a good boy? How you tried your best? How you did all you could?

She loved you, and again you ran from her.

“I’m not ready yet, not for that.”

What keeps you bound to these dreams? Is it hope? Is it fantasy? Is it ignorance?

There’s nothing noble about letting them all < b u r n >

Embers in the night sky, and you’re breathing them out-

“So be it.”

Arrogance will get you nowhere-

“It’s gotten me this far.”

And where, pray tell, is here? On your throne made of all the lives at your feet? Baptized in the blood of innocents who died because you couldn’t think fast enough, your crown is made of twisted spines and pretty lies you tell yourself to keep the demons quiet.

If you are talking, you cannot hear them.

“Frank was always better at running his mouth than I ever was.”

It will < b r e a k > you.

You cannot run forever. She owns you, she owns your soul, you belong to her. And somewhere in the pit of your stomach as it knots and it twists and it begins to wobble as though you might heave, you begin to wonder to yourself if there’s something more that you could have-

“No.”

…No?

“I did everything I could.”

You are… fire and steel. Holy mechanations drive the core of all that you are, and yet somehow, buried under all of this carbon fibre and wire your heart is still beating despite all of the efforts to stop it from doing so.

Stop that.  
Stop that.  
You have no right to draw breath.

The sea water rushes down your throat again, it blossoms agony in your lungs like wildflowers. You can feel the crush of ten hundred thousand million tons of the world’s folly caving your body in like a vice.

No light.  
No light.  
You will drown like the rest.

Can you feel it? Can you hear them? They aren’t screaming anymore. We’ll cycle and spin you up and we’ll keep this engine alive. Don’t you miss her?

Don’t you want to taste her lips again?

And she’s in your throat, made of the sun. She’s bleeding into you.

She’s all you know. An ocean made of fire and gunpowder. Wires and circuits run under your skin, and there’s so little left. Dig them out. The hull is cracking under the pressure down here, down here, down down forever in the starlight under the ocean.

In the nothingness, violet is a cloying shade of romance.

The captain is gone, and the sun bleeds over the horizon as you wake every morning. The voice in your dreams is gone, gone, so very… here.

She’s always here, and she’s staying.

The next time you dream, she will be back again.

She takes the loneliness away…


	21. // losing_sleep

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> WARNING: n/a
> 
> FEATURING: Adam Jensen (Canon Character); Megan Reed (Canon Character)
> 
> INFO: I felt the urge to type some Adam-Vent and not his usual kind of vents he enjoys. No, no. This one’s about the big M.R. - Megan Reed. My Adam hasn’t had a moment to properly vent about her just yet. There’s a lot of layered details hidden in this thing, like with most of emotional drabbles. Sometimes you just need to let it out.

You yelled.

Because that’s what you’re best at.

You found it so easy to blame me for everything. Shoulder the blame so your delicate ones could feel lighter. That was it, wasn’t it?

Is that why I was here? Is that why we were together?

Why do you come back home?

Why do I come back home?

This will never be a happy home so long as you are in it.

You wounded me. You cut until you saw blood and you cut until you saw bone and you kept cutting cutting cutting and cutting and cutting and-…

You bared my soul and then you destroyed it.

I don’t trust you anymore.

But you yelled because it was my fault. I’m always wrong and you’re right. That’s just how it is. What does it feel like to be incapable of erring?

What does it feel like to be guilt-free?

My wings were stripped bare, every feather burnt to drift on a breeze where it was lost to me and to you and to everyone I would ever know. You destroyed me and no amount of twisting my body through with metal and glass and shrapnel from a million sources where each one is written the hate of my enemies will ever hurt so badly as you made me hurt, you made me hurt, you hurt me.

You did this to me.

How do you sleep at night?


	22. // linerosis

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> WARNING: n/a
> 
> FEATURING: Adam Jensen (Canon Character)
> 
> INFO: Based on the prompt of "Linerosis - the desire to care less about things".

               _Is there nothing_  
                                    _so holy_  
                                    _as a love most pure?_

             You thought you knew once.

                                       _Once upon a time…_

                            Isn’t that how all of the fairytales start?

                 Sometimes you still say it,  
                                           out **loud** ,  
                           under your **breath**.

Where’s your happy ending?  
Where’s your sunset to ride into?  
Where’s your justice?

                                                 **“I deserve it.”**

                     Oh but those words

                                                 _h_  
                                                  _u_  
                                                    _r_  
                                                     _t_  
                                              so much…

You will go your whole life, believing it so once you finally achieve it. And in the end, perhaps you will have your three bedroom house on a hill, on the banks of a lake, perhaps with a river running through the back yard. Forest lingering at the edge of your gaze, you can see it out the window.

                       Snow in the trees _shifts_ and _falls_.

                            It makes _no sound_.  
                                    ah…  
                                                    …much like your protests,  
                                                           **absent**.  
  
You tell yourself the same thing every day,  
                                       it doesn’t **matter** ,  
                             dreams aren’t **realistic**.

               And so,  
                    you let go.

                                               Haha.

                         What a joke.

                                         Every day you care, more and more. You care about the future you were denied, about the people who have suffered, about those who have lost their lives, their rights, their freedom.

                _You think back sometimes to the child at the station._

                                         Mother **died**.  
                                            ~~ _you held her hand_~~

            ~~_y_ _ou c_ _ouldn’t save her_~~

                    Are they growing up okay?  
                    Was there something more you could do?  
                    Did you try hard enough?

                                               **…**

         You’re standing at the intersection, outside a cafe.  
                A woman is looking at you with concern.  
                    Her augmented eyes peer at you.

                              _“Are you alright?”_

You’ve no idea how much time has passed, since you were lost in your head. She cares about you, despite not knowing you. And you, dear Adam, forget to answer her. Lost in your head, you could only **think** to yourself,

              about how you wish this didn’t affect you  
                           **quite so badly…**

                   _You nod.  
                   She doesn’t move._

                               _“Yeah… yeah, I’m alright.”_

               Her worry has not fled. _“You are certain?”_

                          Her voice is soft, and it trembles a little.  
                          Meek. She’s meek. She sounds like  
                          Someone you knew once upon a time…

                                      _“Yeah. Thank you.”_

      _She smiles.  
      You mirror it._

                     You wonder if her voice cried out for someone,  
                                when the world fell apart.

           And you wish you could **stop**. _  
_


	23. // dont_cry

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> WARNING: This personal ficlet contains MUTILATION. It is NOT graphic, but it is one of the themes of the piece nonetheless.
> 
> FEATURING: Adam Jensen (Canon Character); Václav Koller (Canon Character); ALTERNATE UNIVERSE
> 
> INFO: Based on the prompt "Find my character turned into a monster" sent by the friend who plays Václav with my Adam. The idea of a mechanical boxguard-based centaur was first on my to-do list regarding my Belltower CEO OC, Nadir, because he's a Sagitarrius. But I applied it to Adam for this piece because he lives in a building called the Chiron in Detroit, which is the proper name of the mythical figure Sagitarrius is based on. Figured I may as well go hard!

                   …You remember…

                                   _joy_  
                                   .  
                                          .  
                                            .

                                              _Isn’t that right, dear Václav?_

          You remember the way it felt to be in his bed  
                                                                   in his arms  
                                                                     in his heart

                      You remember  
                             who he was  
                                 before this  
  
The man who stands before you is no longer **your Adam**.  
              He’s gone.  
There’s nothing left of him in there.  
              He’ll never be the same.  
Does he still love you?  
              He doesn’t recognize you.

                            Your heart is **wounded**. Your feet feel…  
                                                      so  
                                                      heavy  
                                                      …

             And yet  
                    you still **love** him.

An unholy fusion of man and machine, more wires and plating than flesh creeps up around his throat where you once laid out your tender kisses. The plate in the back of his skull ble  
                                    e  
                                     d  
                                      s  
                                          **LED** red at all hours. The _gold_ in his eyes has engulfed the green you recall looking up at you during the early morning hours where you both slept in.

          **Sleep**        You told him once you wish you didn’t ever have to sleep again, and now your heart longs for his soft insistance that you join him in bed. A bed he’ll never use again, a bed you cannot stomach looking at now because it feels so empty.  
                                        It feels _wrong_.

                      Your feet moved finally, and you approach the man who’s been fused together with a boxguard, an _abstraction_ of a centaur, you think.

                                               If only.  
                                               If only.

                                If only it were so beautiful.

                 **“J-Jensen?”** ~~_(that’s not your voice)_~~

                               **“H…hey… brouček?”**

His head turns finally, and he looks _down_ at you, the mobile legs stepping to turn in circles until the mangled, twisted remnants of his torso face you, heat roiling from the cores that power his broken body.

                  His eyes are dead.  
                  That’s the part that will haunt you.

                                      The guns move.  
                                      He takes aim at you.  
      You **panic**.  
      You’re **scared**.

                                      You’ve _never_ feared him before.

                            ****“Jensen, please!”** **  
                                    he hasn’t fired yet-

                            ****“It… it’s me..!”** **  
                                    maybe he recognizes you-

There’s something there, in the way he cants his head slightly,

like he’s trying to make sense-

                             **“Yes! Yes! Me! I-it’s Václav!”**

              The heavy feet move.  
                           He approaches.

You’re _rooted_ in place and the heavy machinery guides him _clo **ser**_ and something in the back of your mind is **screaming** to _run_ because you know he could **kill** you and these could be your last moments but you’re telling that voice you **can’t** leave him you **can’t** you **can’t** let him suffer **alone** because you’d **never** let that happen to him and-

                   and…

…and he hasn’t fired.

                 His mouth has moved, scarred that it is.

                      And he has no voice anymore.

                           But he mouthed the shape of the letters  
                                             that make up your

                                                                     _name_

_**He recognizes you.**_

And you’ve never _cried_  
                                            without making a _sound_  
                                                      quite like this before

                 You feel…  
                                     _alone_ …

                             And you’ve always been alone.

                             **But that was before you met him.**

Before you remembered what it felt like  
                                       to love the sky

                                              **…**


	24. // still_feeling

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> WARNING: n/a
> 
> FEATURING: Adam Jensen (Canon Character); Megan Reed (Canon Character)
> 
> INFO: Adam muse is having a moment, and I don’t think it’s going to pass until I hammer this out for him. Sometimes you just gotta let the boy be sad for a minute. I see you there, broody man.

> _“nicotine and smoke,_
> 
> _anything to cope.”_

That’s what you tell yourself. That’s what it is.

But the smoke stopped working a while ago. You’re not sure if it’s because your augmented lungs can’t absorb it properly, because the scrubbers wipe it clean, or because you’re just so **fucking** numb that nothing helps anymore.

You aren’t numb.

Don’t you lie to me.

You can’t even look yourself in the eyes in the morning. You’re feeling your feelings and you wish they weren’t real. Because no matter how many times you tell yourself and the world that you’re more machine than man that just isn’t true.

It hasn’t felt true in a while.

And you’re buried in a _**fantasy**_ that maybe if you can save everyone then you can save yourself but sometimes it all comes crashing down and snaps back to

reality. Why can’t they augment away your emotional fatigue?

And you’re so tired

And you’re so tired

And there’s never a moment to breathe until there is and then you’re suffocating all over again in the loneliness of this little apartment.

You had a home once-

This isn’t home.

 _ **Once upon a time**_ you came home to a woman who loved you, and you love her and that word isn’t past tense like you want it to be.

> _“Please let me move on.”_

You keep saying it to yourself, but you’re scared for her. You’re terrified she’s gotten tangled up in more than she can handle. And you’re scared that she’s making a mistake and her life will be on the line again and this time you’re under no obligations to save her but you know you just know if you see her name in an obituary it’s going to

unravel

you.

_**Why does this hurt so much?** _

You couldn’t care any less that you’re not together. You know it won’t work out. But that’s not the part that’s eating you alive. You’re tired of the world falling apart, of people dying, of people losing the ones they love.

And you don’t want to lose her

Because you still love her  
Because you still love her  
Because she loved you  
Because she meant something and she always will.

Sometimes the wildest fantasies are just pretending everything is normal, pretending you don’t need these feelings.

Sometimes you don’t think about how you promised her mother you’d go to her funeral.

At least you didn’t need to.

You never liked ties much anyways...


	25. // little_fears

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> WARNING: The following personal ficlet contains death. It is NOT graphic, but it is nonetheless one of the themes of this piece. 
> 
> FEATURING: Václav Koller (Canon Character); Ivan Berk (Canon Character)
> 
> INFO: I haven’t written anything for my Václav Koller muse that I’m trying to develop yet, and while he’s scarcely an active muse, he needs this piece. It’s time to confront some things, Vác... I know you don’t want to, but sometimes we have to do things we don’t want to do.

 

Dust on the air.

Dust on the shelves.  
Dust on your soul.

Buried, buried, underground. Under the earth, like sewer pipes and secret places, like   _ ~~his body~~_

but you try not to think about that.

Sunlight that came to visit you. He never let you stay locked away for very long, down here, where the world forgot you existed. You liked it that way.

Nobody pried  
Nobody pried

Days feel longer now. You’re watching the branches stretch like claws across the pale porcelain sidewalks, cracked much the way the world is. But they aren’t bleeding. The world is bleeding, this city is bleeding, and something in your soul tells you

things will never be the same.

You bundle the hoodie tighter, fold your arms against your chest, and walk past a restaurant. The food is cheap, but it’s good. The owner’s an augmented man who is always happy to see you. He welcomed your presence.

His as well.

He was a trouble maker, but he never hurt a soul. But you were always afraid he’d cross a line. Ever since the incident, he was different.

You tried  
You tried

He was angry. He had a right to be. We all had a right to be. But he never hurt a soul. Food doesn’t taste the same anymore. You shake every time you see yellow cloth. Something in the pit of your stomach twists when Isolay augs come into your workshop.

And it hurts like nothing has ever hurt before.

Your pace is faster, and you won’t look up as you pass the station. Reality on your heels, like dogs that bite. You pull the hood down, you steady your breath and your racing thoughts of how maybe if you’d told him to stay the night he’d be okay.

Maybe he’d still be alive.

He spilled into your shop, more red than yellow, and collapsed before he reached your arms.

He cried  
He cried

Every beat of your heart was the frantic hooves of a deer across an open field. You dropped everything because the price tag didn’t matter. You can’t put a price on a life. You remember the uncharacteristic sound of your voice. It shook like the rest of you. You’re even shaking now.

The wounds haven’t healed.

You fear they never will. You’ll find every way to blame yourself for what he did. For not being able to help as he dyed your augs red, more red than you’ve ever wanted in your life. You hate the paint job now. But you held him as he cried, blubbered like a child and sobbed that he fucked up he fucked up he fucked

up this time. You wish... you could have done more.

He died.  
He died.

And you told yourself and you told him that it wasn’t his fault. But he was already gone when you finally stopped saying it. Nothing feels this hollow. Nothing feels this wrong. Your best friend. You’ve known him since you were small.

And he’s gone.

How do you bury someone you love?  
How do you keep a secret?  
How do you lock this pain up inside?

How do you go on?

You knew the answer, as you enter your workshop and hang up the hoodie you wish was his but you couldn’t bear to keep it. You’re not real, you can’t be, none of this is real because bad things don’t happen to good people.

But they do.  
And they did.

You so rarely slept on this old futon before. Lately, it’s seen more use than the last three years combined. But you sit on the edge and you stare at the monitors, the floor, the posters and the hole in your heart. You wear your heart on the sleeve you kept attached and now it’s tempting to remove that one too.

Your head in your hands.  
Your tears hit the floor.  
And this bed never saw much use before.

Because  
you died.  
you died.

But he’s the one who was buried.


	26. // blame

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> WARNING: This personal ficlet contains DEATH. It is mildly graphic and contains DROWNING.
> 
> You know, for a person whose blog name is “Remember Panchaea”, I sure don’t write a lot of sad Panchaea feels, do I?
> 
> Well, luckily that’s about to change because a few people goaded me into writing this spicy fucking take about those final moments in the belly of Panchaea.
> 
> I apologize for any broken hearts that went down into the ocean with Adam. ♥

You swore you could hear it.  
You swear to this day it was there,

not the sound of the walls _trembling_.

But of _Heaven_ as it sighed,

Of **God** bearing down...

Not to punish the wicked, but rather those that _tried_.

And you hear it, you swear, though you'll never tell.

The pitch in his voice,  
The tremble,  
The subtle  
soft  
way

That it sounded so small, so scared.

...you’ve heard it before, you think to yourself.

When he thought no one was there to hear him cry.  
When he was brought back from the brink,  
When he was born again.

This is no life, no light, no mercy.

"hey..."

And you lifted your head, from your hands, from your thoughts, into a reality you,

you _could not bear_.

"Frank?"

You longed for him to call you by your full name. You longed for the venom, for the anger, for anything but the sound of the walls buckling and metal screeching and the sound, the sound of the water breaking through.

You wished you hadn't tried to dig for his frequency.  
You wished you hadn't found it after all.

"...Y-yeah. I'm here."

But you wished you weren't.

And you would rather never hear it, as his heart thumped against his throat, bleeding onto electronic readings now printed out across your display as you could see with your eyes what you couldn't in there.

"I'm... I'm scared."

And you're silent.

Because what do you say, to a man who's never known fear?  
He knew it intimately.  
You denied admitting it.

And your silence spanned longer than you meant.

_You never meant a lot of things..._

"I-"

"I know."

You cut him off.  
You don't want to hear it.  
The fear in his throat, welling like you know the water will when he can't breathe anymore, when he's trapped, under the ocean, drawn

down  
_down_

d  
o  
_w_  
n  
.  
**.**  
_**.**_

"I know, Jensen... I'm sorry, I-"

But you never can finish.  
You can't apologize for everything you should have, as the transmission fizzles to the sound of the walls caving, and you shout,  
you shout in fear and you shout but he

can't hear you anymore.

You can hear him.

You hear the sound of something fall, of something striking him, heavy enough you've never heard him

make that sound before.

_"Jensen!?"_

And he's yelling, but you can't make it out, and the feed in his eyes dies as the water rises

and your heart is colder than the ocean floor.

Than the ocean you can hear him struggling against.  
Drowning in the hopes of humanity,  
His final breaths are choked and painful,  
Full of  
sputtering  
gasping  
once you swear he cried out for you...

You'll hear it for as long as you live

you'll hear it for as long as you live

 _ **"I'm sorry!"**_ you choke out, and incoherency takes you  
drags you  
under the waves.

_"Jensen? Jensen!"_

... there's no answer

_"Jensen can you hear me!"_

... there's no answer

_**"Adam!"** _

There's no answer.

 

 

 

"I should have been there with him...

... He was alone... He didn't..."

...

"He didn't ... deserve that..."

 

Mercy, you think,  
Is only beautiful  
To those who desire it.

 

...

Do you think he jolts awake at night?  
Swearing he can hear his voice.  
A garbled transmission.  
Seeping through his radio.  
Crawling through the static on his TV.

He's monitoring that frequency.  
For something he doesn't want to hear.

Something sleeping under the cold ocean.

Something  
Something cold  
Something lost

Something you took for granted.

Ah, and you long for the  
Sound of heavy steps  
Stalking to your office.

Mad, mad no doubt,  
You're going mad, you're  
Imagining his face at the corner of your eye.

Because you can hear  
He's still breathing.


End file.
